Changemaker: Lucas Bulgarelli
Country of Implementation: Brazil
When compared to countries in Latin America and in the world, Brazil maintains alarming rates related to
sexual violence against children and adolescents. These rates have been a concern for several national and
local governments over the past few years. Even so, the increase in cases of sexual harassment, generally
committed by relatives or people close to the victims, is a reason for attention. An important mechanism to
combat this violence is found in sex and gender education, a tool that provides necessary information for
children and adolescents to identify and report abuse and harassment. In addition, schools and especially
teachers are often the first to receive and/or perceive different types of sexual and gender violence and
abuse against minors. However, more recently, some Brazilian groups have protested against the teaching
of gender, sexuality, and themes related to sexual education and sexual and reproductive rights in school
spaces. Despite the Brazilian Supreme Court has decided that it is impossible to prohibit or prohibit
debates of gender and sexuality in schools, politicians and leaders have been chasing teachers and
institutions that defend the need to address such issues in the classroom. In order to help to overcome this
situation, the project “Educating to prevent: Educational tools for the realization of rights and combating
sexual and gender violence” seeks to offer Brazilian teachers information about sexual violence and sexual
and reproductive rights, enabling education professionals to be provided with skills and content that allow
them to work on such topics in the classroom safely and based on studies and scientific evidence. The
activity will consist of a course conducted by Instituto Matizes divided into a presentation module and four
content modules offered on an online platform, in addition to a toolkit containing the main information that
will be treated in the course and made available online. Some participants will also be selected to act as
multipliers in their schools and cities. Concurrent with the training activity, a survey with the participating
teachers will also be carried out portraying the course experience and important issues that help to
understand the articulations between gender, sexuality, and education in Brazil.
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